News

The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) says it’s “disappointed and dismayed” after the House of Representatives voted 227-205 last week to repeal the Orphan Drug Tax Credit as part of a U.S. tax reform package. A similar package before the Senate Finance Committee does not repeal the credit…

In vitro diagnostics and theranostics company Theradiag is partnering with the U.S. biotech company Biogen to provide Lisa Tracker kits for monitoring treatment with Flixabi, a biosimilar of Remicade (infliximab). Like Remicade, which is marketed by Janssen, Biogen’s Flixabi is indicated for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and…

Boehringer Ingelheim announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorization for Cyltezo, a biosimilar to Humira (adalimumab), for the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and other chronic inflammatory diseases in adults and children. The decision follows Cyltezo’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August 2017…

Obesity can make the spinal arthritis disease axial spondyloarthropathy worse, Irish researchers report. Obese patients are likely to have worse symptoms, less physical function, and lower quality of life, according to a team at St. James’s Hospital in Dublin. Overall, two-thirds of axSpa patients are either overweight or obese, the study…

Novartis recently reported that long-term radiographic data from a clinical trial showed that treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) with Cosentyx (secukinumab) resulted in no disease progression in a vast majority of the patients analyzed. The multi-center, Phase 3 MEASURE I study (NCT01358175) showed that almost 80 percent of AS…

A study of patients with ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis who switched from Remicade (infliximab) therapy to a biosimilar, sold as Remsima or Inflectra (CT-P13), showed that 24% of patients stopped taking the therapy within six months for reasons that appear unrelated to the therapy’s health benefits. The…

Children’s National Health System no longer treats just kids. Its Rare Disease Institute, launched in April 2017, has partnered with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) to become the first of many U.S. “centers of excellence” to look after patients with rare diseases, regardless of age. The effort…

Novartis will present new four-year data from the MEASURE 1 study showing how Cosentyx (secukinumab) benefits patients with ankylosing spondylitis at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, Nov. 3-8. The data shows that Cosentyx is capable of reducing structural disease progression in ankylosing spondylitis patients, which…

More therapies are now available for the 30 million or so people with rare diseases in the U.S. than ever before, and millions of dollars are being invested in clinical studies that will test new ways of evaluating — and advancing — potential treatments, including the use of natural history…

As Congress begins debate this week to overhaul the U.S. tax code, lawmakers should leave the Orphan Drug Act (ODA) — and the tax incentives it offers pharmaceutical companies to develop therapies for rare diseases — off the table. That’s the message being pushed by the National Organization for…